Monday, March 26, 2012

This weekend my older sister and I attended a Moms To Moms sale through our local momstown chapter. I had never been to a sale like this but when I got the invite I was intrigue and grabbed my favourite experienced Mom.

I didn't really know what to expect, I have never really bought clothing second hand. Since The Boss and her cousin are so close in age we have passed a few things back and forth but for the most part everything has been brand new. I love to shop and keep up with the latest trends so this is not something I would probably do all the time, but this sale was great!

I picked up a dress and the cutest pair of sandals from Gymboree for The Boss among a few other cute things for play clothes. If it wasn't totally creepy I would've asked the lady I bought most of my purchases from to be my new best friend. I loved every single thing she had bought her girls, and I could tell from how much she had to sell that she loves shopping as much as I do.

Since we are spending Easter in Florida, I thought this was perfect. Bright, cheery and playful. I bought another dress for The Boss from Children's Place and I didn't love it. It was $34 and although I purchased it on sale for $20 I still couldn't learn to love it. Enter Mom to Mom...I picked up this sweet dress, that according to the seller was only worn once (It looks like it's never been worn) for $5. That's right...I saved $15...just enough money to buy a cute matching purse right?

I have also already picked out her Daddy's suit and tie for Easter...they will co-ordinate perfectly, and what's cuter than a Daddy and his baby matching on Easter. Now what will Mommy wear?

These are the shoes I picked up as well. Call me OCD but I took a Lysol wipe to them when I got home (they were immaculate when I bought them but it put my mind at ease).

I guess the moral of the story is that kids grow so fast, for every penny I save I can buy her that much...or buy Mommy something new.

Saturday, March 24, 2012

We had a taste of summer for the past two weeks. Which has put me completely behind in all my projects. Who wants to paint the house or stain a table when the sun is shining and the park is calling your name. So instead of working on projects we have been playing outside. Family time is so precious to me and work can wait. My type A personality is starting to go a little crazy in the half completed mess but I know it will be done soon and that family time is more important than creating a beautiful home.

While The Boss was sleeping, I decided to squeeze in a small spring cleaning project. Our front hall closet has been driving me crazy for a few weeks now so it was time to purge and tidy. This picture is just a portion of the closet there are many more shoes, don't even get me started with my heels, however I had no idea I had so many pairs until I started to organize them. Growing up my older sister was the shoe girl...she still is. She always found and bought fabulous shoes. And it seems as though her little niece is taking after her.

The Boss can often be found tromping around the house in mine or Mr. D's shoes. Anytime someone's shoes are left at the front door I'll hear her wrestling to get them on and eventually she comes into the kitchen to show me her new pair. Another reason why the closet needed to be cleaned...so there were no excuses for not putting shoes away.

It was very cleansing to go through, getting rid of and tidy the closet. I actually love spring cleaning and have spent sometime in other areas of our house purging. Look out Goodwill...I am bringing in what I purchase two fold! My goal is to tackle one project a week. Is anyone having a linky party for this? That might be good motivation to keep me going.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

I am so excited so please come check it out. While you're there spend sometime checking out Danielle's sweet blog. With 4 little ones 3 and under, she is one busy Momma! Her kiddies are cute as can be and just got back from the Disney Cruise...could we be anymore Jealous? The Boss would've died to meet all those princesses.

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Lucky for me, my neighbour noticed and left a note on my door. You working Mom's know what it's like. You're running out the door, throw the little one in the car seat and completely forget to do your four point check before driving away. Let's be honest, the last time I did a four point check is the day I took my driving test. I did what every independent woman does, took a picture on my phone and sent it to the Mr. When he told me I shouldn't drive I continued my brave independence by calling my Mom. She didn't need her car today so the girl and I walked over and borrowed it.

Today I am thankful for neighbours who care, a hubby who laughs and fixes it when he gets home, and a Mom who is willing to help us out.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

We are currently painting and re-decorating our entire main level. We live in a very open concept home so when you change one thing it has to carry throughout. We started painting a few weeks ago but due to our schedules we can only paint on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. This means it is taking forever!!!! While it seems like this project will never end we are making great progress and the end is now in site. We started with a completely "builder's beige" box, and when we finish our trim will be white, the main room and hall sage silver from Restoration Hardware, it will also include pops of navy...including our kitchen!

While Mr. D worked on the baseboards this weekend I worked on spraying and re-upholstering our new up-cycled dinning room chairs. Below is a sneak peak of our new chairs!

I am so excited to complete this project and share it. Until then, let me know what you think!

Friday, March 9, 2012

The weather is cold and miserable at this time of year so Mr. D and I took on a painting project to keep us entertained on the weekends. I'm not going to lie, we are TERRIBLE painters...it's on the floor, it's on the ceiling and don't even get me started on the baseboards. Anyway, this week we got a random day of warmth and sunshine...it was glorious and just enough motivation to get us through the last few days of winter.

This weekend we are hoping to finish up our project and then I'll post pictures. In the meantime...

Thursday, March 8, 2012

For Valentine's Day my idea for my Man was to decorate his "Man-Cave". I think it's every man's dream to have a space to call his own and I also think if most couples were perfectly honest they would say their house more so represents the wife's style not necessarily the couple's style.

I started with this...the maroon drapes came with the house, and although the furniture down there is nice the room itself was just not finished. It needed some extra love.

BEFORE

AFTER

How about that toy chest? Do you remember the epic fail that was this toy chest. If not check it out here in the worlds ugliest spray paint colour. Gator blue is a much better choice. The pillow is made from a tea towel bought at IKEA 3 for $4. I used the two others on the couch.

The picture over the TV is a poster I got framed for Mr. D for Christmas. He bought it a few years ago because it's a picture of the Florida stadium the day he took me to my first Gator game. He claims that's why he bought it...the sentimental value, romantic right? Can you spot me?

I purchased the drapes on sale for $20 for two panels on sale at Zellers (soon to be Target). I then taped them off and painted the lines on them. I searched online for drapes and the only ones I liked were way out of my price range. This was a cost effective way to get custom drapes. They were a huge amount of work, especially since I could only work on them when my Hubby was out and I was hiding them when he was home, they would have been a little easier if I wasn't hiding them. I researched how to do this here and here and then got to work.

I measured the drapes then did the math and decided my stripes would be 8 inches apart. It was tricky to measure and tape it off because you need to account for the width of the tape in the sections you are not painting. So you measure your first section and tape it. You then measure from the top of the tape 8 more inches and tape it off with the bottom edge of the tape. When you look at it all taped it looks as if the painted sections are larger but that is just because of the width of the tape....make sense?

The drapes are a little crunch if you touch them, but who touches there drapes? They hang very nicely and look great.

Messages to my love for Valentine's Day. You can't tell by the
picture but they had flameless tea lights in them that gave them a nice
glow and ambiance for our Valentine's date and big reveal. I saw this
idea on another blog that I can't find. If this was your idea, email me
and I will give you credit. :)